Chasing the scent of Love, Truth, Beauty, and Mirth, wherever it may lead.

Thursday, February 06, 2014

Fear of Love

A Delicate Balance

Untitled, by Jala Magik

Doreen
Virtue, who I sampled for the first time on a recent program on Gaiam-TV, is a
seer. She
probably sees pretty well, considering the career she’s made for herself by
seeing.

One
thing she sees stands out in my mind. Fear, she says, is the mechanism Ego uses
to take over our lives, which then turn out for the worse. That’s because Ego
has become disproportionately self-important, too big for its britches. It has
elbowed its way into control of us, pushing the True Self, an individualized
aspect of Divine Love, into the background. The True Self, thus eclipsed, is
then prevented from fully expressing its primary impulse, which is Love.
Compounded by billions of individuals around the world, this loss of Love
because of Fear causes such bitterness and strife and untold suffering that the
planet groans to the Cosmos for relief.

But,
Virtue says, Ego is insecure in its position of control. It wants love from the
True Self but, subconsciously aware of its over-reach, fears it doesn’t have it.
Separated from the True Self by Fear (and no doubt Guilt), Ego mistakenly
believes itself alone in a dangerous world, living by its wits. This produces a
perception of reality as a primitive state of Nature—social Darwinism, for
example—until Fear is faced and pacified and the True Self is then able to
enter the here-and-now with Fear absent or at least under control.

That,
at least, is my understanding of the seer Virtue’s dharma, with which, she
suggests, we might heal the world.

In
Buddhism, which I admire and practice semi-regularly, there is no True Self,
unless it be the Great Unknowable Everything. So for me to go forward with Ms.
Virtue, I have to opt out of Buddhism for the moment and identify myself
somewhere else. There are many choices. Most religions affirm some sort of afterlife
survival, as do plenty of free-wheeling spiritualists. So for the present I’ll
adopt a belief in an immortal soul, a singular identity hovering about
somewhere in my being, hoping to be recognized or perhaps allowed to drive the
physical vehicle which, by all rights, belongs to it.

Then—switching
back to Buddhism—if I accept that Fear is the trigger which releases all my ego
insecurities, I can practice throwing open the doors of my mind and letting all
those suppressed fears into the room to be seen in the full light of the
present moment.

The
practice begins as I release control. Immediately a barrage of terrors sweeps
in, swirling about menacingly, formidably, always multiplying, never dividing.
I simply listen, watch, pass no judgment and make no choice, until the fears
play out and, like wisps of smoke from a dying fire, they drift away into
nothing.

Then
it’s as if an authentic Self steps in to pick up the time line at a sweeter
vibration, continuing useful, peaceful pleasures until, of course, Ego finds a
way to bring Fear back in.

It
makes quite a story, maybe the only story there’s ever been, told and retold in
myriad ways, of the struggle in human beings between Love and Fear.

It
seems to me that achieving just the right balance between them is the task set
before me as a human, and perhaps the task set before all humans. To be
fearless is not necessarily a state of grace, if it over-rides common-sense
caution. But to be loveless is worse.

Here’s
a poem I wrote on the subject back in 2009. I have to confess, Ms. Virtue
notwithstanding, not much has changed for me since.